Out of My Hands
by Moved to A New Accnt
Summary: This is a quick, raw one-shot fic in Jake McKenzie's POV during the events of Endless Summer Book 2 Chapter 15 from the game Choices. Spoilers are up ahead. All dialogues here are non-verbatim.


_[This is a quick, raw fic in Jake McKenzie's POV. Writing this after playing the last chapter of Endless Summer Book 2 in the game Choices._

 _Spoilers are up ahead. If you're playing Endless Summer, don't read until you've read Chapter 15 of Book 2._

 _Unless you like spoilers._

 _All dialogues here are not what are exactly stated in the game, and I'm using the default name Taylor for the MC. I just need to do this because feels]_

* * *

"Yo, this is the last time I'm flying with you!" Drax yelled from behind. "Holy shit, here's another one-"

I grit my teeth after feeling the explosion from the chopper's tail, hands clenched tightly on the flight controls. Bucking against the sudden forward jolt and continuous erratic impact, pinned by the safety belts of my seat.

I can smell the smoke; it's rapidly clouding my vision, and soon enough, it's going to suffocate us all. I can hear Tetra laughing maniacally, haunting us through the thick smoke.

"Jakey Wakey!" He taunts, his idiotic, maniacal voice echoing. I don't know how that dude does it but I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to hear his fucking voice when we're in a helicopter hundreds of feet away from the blown up M.A.S.A.D.A. tower. Not to mention he keeps launching those little missiles of his and the damn things keep hitting us.

"Goddammit," I curse loudly, trying to maneuver what's left of the engine. I hear Steve Rogers telling people to hold on as apparently, another missile is on its way to blow this shit up.

I try to keep my cool, blocking out all their screams and insults at how I'm not moving this thing fast enough or dodging the missiles perfectly. I need us to get to the other side. Pop Culture Petey and the rest have already gone down with the gondola.

Princess insisted to come back for them. But we can't. It's suicide.

More importantly, I can't let Princess die just like that. Nevermind me actually, but right now, I'm the only one who can bring us to safer grounds. So I'll do just that.

I maneuver to the far left as Katniss tips me that a missile is incoming in the other direction, and then I hear Taylor's voice above the explosions and wind-

"Quinn no!"

I briefly peered behind my seat. Huh. Ariel's gone green again- her body glowing in that eerie green light by the Island's heart, her eyes fully consumed by the power.

Quinn says something I can't hear to Taylor, and just... jumped the fuck out of the chopper. Thanks to Lundgren ripping off the door, it's just easy to get off the chopper. Like, well, what redhead did. Only that- I can see- she's levitating and - what, what? Well, she stopped two missiles. Okay. Good-

Princess' scream cuts out from the rest. My eyes moved quick to her, sprawled on the floor, clawing for anything she can hold on to. Estela attempts to reach out to her but bucks at the sudden tremor, using both her hands to hold herself steady.

"Fuck," I muttered, pulling Estela in the pilot's seat.

"What the fuck-" She contested, but I yelled back at her.

"JUST DO IT DAMMIT!" I sprinted off to Princess, pushing past Sean and Craig. Holy shit, what, where is she-

"Jake!" She calls, holding on feebly to a steel bar on the side of the chopper. Her legs are dangling out in the open. The smoke, the wind, no- Fuck, she's falling, no, no, no-

"I got you Princess," I dived to the floor, my hand was trying to reach for her, the other gripped tightly around the ingrained bar on the chopper's floor. There were a few tremors and unsteady movement with Estela as pilot. The chopper's suffered a lot too.

But I can't let these stop me.

"Grab my hand," I tell her. I was shaking. I was scared. At the many times we've faced danger, this has probably ranked the worst one.

And that's because I can see it in her eyes. This woman is tough. She blows me away with her quick thinking, her strategy, her wit, her confidence- everything. She always knew what to do, what to say. But right now, all I can see in her eyes is pure fear. She doesn't know what to do right now. What's the next step, what's going to happen. It scares me to see that even she has lost faith in what was going to happen to her next.

I was scared that this could be the last one. That the universe is gonna pull another Mike on me. That I would be too late to save someone I ... someone.. I... love.

"Hey, hey, come here, just a bit more," I say as she strains to stretch out her free hand while the other clings weakly to the bar. "Princess, just a bit-"

Then she slips.

"NO-" I scream, scrambling to my feet and try to reach out for her. She screams. Her eyes have tears. The chopper's blades, the sound of the engine, the strong wind drowned her voice instantly.

 _No, no, no-_

It was all too quick. Now she's gone. I can't see her. Her body vanished in the midst of the clouds and thick smoke. She is the only thing that has kept me from turning myself in to Lundgren. _You. You can't disappear, not now, not ever-_

They pulled me back, throwing me inside. "You're not jumping after her Jake!" Sean snaps. "Jake!"

Craig grabs and tightens his grip around my right arm when I attempted to run past them. "No way man! We need you here, Estela is ready to just smash the control shit!"

"I don't fucking care anymore," I yell back angrily at him, and Sean pulls me back even stronger, holding my other arm. I tried to push myself from their hold, kicking my legs wildly. "TAYLOR!" I scream, over and over.

"You need to get yourself back in the pilot's seat," Sean said firmly, sternly. I don't care if he's gonna gut me or whatever. That doesn't matter.

Taylor's voice- her panicked, terrified voice- that echoed when she slipped, is replaying in my head. Over and over. Her face. Her eyes when she realized what happened. What was happening. I can't. I can't shake it off my mind. No, no-

"JAKE, SNAP OUT OF IT!" Sean screams. He and Craig quickly drag me to the cockpit, where I hear Estela shouting a litany of curses at me. But I can't hear her anymore. Nor can I hear Sean, Craig, or the noisy world.

Taylor must've fell straight into the icy ocean. Straight down into the depths. Scared, alone... It reminded me of that time... Falling into the sea, and I couldn't escape because of a peculiar force dragging me down. I was suspended, being pulled downwards slowly, my lungs about to give out.

But in the dark, she emerged. Taylor was swimming towards me. Seeing her comforted me. I pulled her to me, and with the remaining strength and will I had before the water would completely drown me, I kissed her for the first time. And over again, and again, underwater, until I blacked out.

Now she's... She's gone. I couldn't do shit. I know it was out of my hands- I know, and that's probably what made it worse. Because I couldn't do anything.

Estela throws a hard slap on my face. "WAKE UP!"

"Uhh guys, a bit of help here, I think I'm doing something wrong," Craig said nervously, looking at me with alarm. I blink. Sean was shaking my shoulders, his furious face right in front of me.

"Jake, if there's ANYONE from our friends who could survive a fall like that, it's Taylor," He said firmly, pressing down my shoulders. "We need you to fly this thing, and get us to the other side. When we're safe, we can start finding everyone... We'll find her. Just. Snap. Out. Of. It!"

"Pull it up Craig!" Estela instructs, yelling at his ear. Craig cusses until he just tries to press shit here and there.

"I... Y-Yeah, fuck." I shake my head, pushing past Sean. "Outta my way, let me do this." I took a deep breath as Craig flees from the pilot's seat, and I run through a number of things immediately to pull the chopper up from spiraling into a cliff, steering it higher and farther.

By this point, the missiles couldn't reach us anymore. There was no sign of Quinn either. I saw Craig slump back against the wall. Estela leaves the cockpit. Sean steadies himself beside me, the movement still wobbly because, man, I still don't understand how this chopper is still working after everything that happened.

I inhale noisily. I maneuver the chopper around the gondola's cut cables, speeding upwards to the cliff where we camped last night.

"She'll be okay," Sean said. "Have some faith in her."

I could only nod. "Yeah. I guess I forgot Princess is tougher than you are, Cap. She's... She's going to survive."

First Mike, and now... This. This is too much for one day. She told me that Mike's going to come back eventually. That somewhere inside "Mouse", the old Mike is still there... Fuck Lundgren really. Fuck him, those Arachnids, Aleister, Rourke-

I wish she was here to tell me she has a plan. That she'll see to it everyone will be fine and we'll get out of this fucking mess. That she'll be here for me.

 _I wish... she was here._


End file.
